S chool of Athens by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), 1511. Fresco. Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Vatican Museum. Public Domain. Greek thinkers include Epicurus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (center), Ptolemaios, gods Apollo and Athena, Herakleitos,  Diogenes of Sinope, Plotinos, Hypatia (with a white robe, lower left), Alexander the Great upper left wearing a military uniform) and Euclid, lower right, in a red robe, drawing a geometrical figure.   Prologue   PLEASE GO TO THE LAST PARAGRAPH, LINE 3, AND CLICK ON THE WORD PRESENTATION IN ORDER TO WATCH A YOUTUBE VIDEO OF MY DISCUSSION IN GREEK OF THE HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GREEK TRADITIONS. All traditions are human inventions that last briefly or, sometimes, forever. Some of those innovations are extremely useful and last, other vanish, only to be replaced by better alternatives. We don’t know when traditions, much less history, began. There are periods of human activity d...

    Greek officials return the Greek flag to the Acropolis  after the departure of Nazi German troops from the country in October 1944. Wikipedia   Prologue   Greek economists and Greek government documents show that German atrocities and violence in World War II occupied Greece exceed 1 trillion dollars. [1]  Yet try searching the Internet about the German debt to Greece and you ger the Greek debt to the Germany dominated European Union and America’s International Monetary Fund. The entire historical experience is mixed up in favor of killer Germany. This bloodbath started in April 1941 with the occupation of Greece by Nazi troops.    The debt of the West to Greece   Few people could have foreseen the beast behind the classical mask of the West. The British scholar  W.R. Inge wrote in 1921 that there was no way the Europeans could do without the Greeks. “Without what we call our debt to Greece,” he says, “we should have neither our...